


Nodus Tollens

by thebesttempinchiswick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Everyone Is Alive, F/F, F/M, For the most part, M/M, Oneshot, Universe Alteration, hunter!Mary, mary is alive, samjess - Freeform, very happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebesttempinchiswick/pseuds/thebesttempinchiswick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>UA Where John is in Sam's nursery that night, and not Mary. She manages to escape with her two sons, but the demon with the yellow eyes took her husband and her home. This is her story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nodus Tollens

**Author's Note:**

> nodus tollens: n; the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure

At first, she has no idea what to do.

So she skips town. She knows it's stupid, that the yellow-eyed demon could just follow her, but she does it anyway.

It turns out to be the best decision she's ever made.

Two days in, she's staying at a motel in Sioux Falls with her boys, and she lands a case. It's small, salt and burn, and she leaves when the boys are asleep, so that they won't break the salt line surrounding the room.

When she gets there, it's a little more than she bargained for, but it seems she has help. The taller of the two men, a dark skinned man, introduces himself as Rufus. His friend's name is Bobby.

"You two live around here?" She asks, as the grave goes up in smoke.

"Me, I live everywhere. Got a few cabins, but none in this state." Says Rufus.

"I live on the outside of town." Says Bobby. "You?"

The beginning of a lie forms in her mouth before she stops herself. These people saved her life, the least she can do is tell them the truth. "I'm staying in the motel on 9th and Main."

>

She grows close to Bobby, and to Rufus, although slightly less so. She eventually gives in and buys a house fairly close to his, partly for convenience and partly for security. This way, if she ever has to leave, her boys will have someone to look after them. They're calling him Uncle Bobby before she knows it.

When Omaha happens, she's the one to pull him back from the brink. She's the one who's there for him, and it's something he never forgets.

>

Time passes, Dean starts kindergarten and Sam starts preschool. Bobby's got a network of hunters up and running now, connecting people to other people and to jobs, as well as providing alibi's, fake ID's, and someone to call when the chips are down.

This is how she meets Bill and Ellen Harvelle, two hunters with a daughter not much younger than Dean. It's really nice, meeting people in the same situation as her; balancing hunting with being a parent. It gives her hope, and hope is becoming an endangered species.

>

She tries to raise them to value themselves, and to value school. With Dean, the first part sticks, the second part, not so much. They spend many a night wide awake, her coaxing him through tonight's round of calculus homework. It's not his fault, he just doesn't get it. He's the kind of kid that needs to be _doing_ something, not just sitting around writing down numbers.

One night, he loses it. He tells her that he hates this, he hates everything, and he's dropping out as soon as he's eighteen.

"And what exactly do you think you're going to do?"

"Hunt." He says without hesitation. When he sees the look on her face, he immediately defends himself. "C'mon mom. It's what I've always wanted to do. I can fix cars at Bobby's if I need extra cash, and besides, I'm pretty good already. Be real, I was never gonna be a doctor."

She shakes her head. "I never wanted that life for you."

"But what if that's what I want?"

It stops her. But she's the mom, and she's not going down without a fight. "I'll make you a deal, kiddo. You graduate, and I'll let you hunt, alright? Deal?"

His face lights up. "Deal." He comes in to hug her. When did he get so goddamend tall? She puts out her hand. "Ah ah ah. Shake on it first."

Sam, of course, loves school. She can see Dean trying not to punch him when he complains about tests being too easy.

So when he gets into Stanford, she pulls out all the stops to throw a graduation party. It's one of the proudest moments of her life.

>

Two years pass, and Sam has a girlfriend named Jess. It's halloween, and she's visiting with Dean. They had a case nearby and there was no way they were passing up a chance to embarrass Sam.

And it's lucky for everyone that they're there. She smells sulfur before everyone else does, and she gets them out of the house as it goes up in flames. Jess doesn't take it well at first.

"That... that thing... he came for me?"

"No." said Sam, putting a hand on her shoulder. "He came for me."

They stay in another motel that night, and they gave Jess the talk. About demons and monsters and how they took them down.

"If you want, Jess, we can help you find a place to stay." She says. She's imagining, of course, that the young girl's gonna be scared out of her mind, and will run as fast as she can in the other direction.

"Sam, are you gonna go with them?" She asks.  
"Yeah, yeah I am. I don't think we can outrun this anymore."

"Then I'm going too." Jess says, standing up and collecting herself. "I don't have much stuff, but I can get cash out of my bank account and I know some tai-kwon-do."

She's impressed. "Alright then. We'll get you a gun, teach you how to shoot. Welcome to the family business." If there's any hint of bitterness to her voice, on that last note, no one says anything.

>

It's a year before the psychic episodes start, and another six months before they start finding other psychics. She's scared. Honestly, truly scared. She puts Bobby on high alert, and even reaches out to Ellen, who drifted away after the death of her husband. They go back to the roadhouse to find little Jo all grown up, and aching to hunt.

It's another six months before Sam is gone.

Jess is trying her best, but she's almost beside herself.

She's out of her mind with worry.

Eventually, they find him, in an abandoned town with an old bell. But as soon as they do, it's to late.

>

She doesn't see Dean get in the car and drive off, box in hand.

She sees Sam wake up, and she knows something is very, very wrong.

"What the hell did you do?"

"What do you mean?" He asks. But he knows. She sees it in his eyes right away.

"Your brother's miraculously alive, after having no pulse for over four hours. So tell me right now, young man, what did you do."

The answer is written all over his face.

She fights back angry tears. "How long did they give you, huh? Ten years? Five?!"

"One."

One.

The word hits her like a bullet. She explodes like shrapnel from a bomb. "Why the hell would you do it?! WHY?! How could you?!"

He looks like a man who never meant to be a soldier, and therefore lost the war.  
"He's got a whole life ahead of him. He's got his school, his girl, and besides, hunters don't live long anyway."

"I've lived this long, haven't I? What about Bobby, Rufus, Ellen they're all still alive!"

"I had to, okay mom? I couldn't let him die."

"No, no you didn't have to, Dean. You and I know better than anyone, what's dead should stay dead. Now, can you get out of this?"

"No."

>

Later that night, the gates open.

When the time comes, she has the colt, and she finishes what she started.

They walk out of the graveyard to find that nothing is visibly different.

Visible or not, they all know that in those moments, the world changed.

>

Things aren't the same without Dean. There isn't a day that goes by where she wonders if she could've done something different, saved both their lives.

Sam tells her it's normal, she's grieving, and he feels it too.

Not that that makes it go away, but at least it's slightly comforting.

>

So when Dean is back, after the initial shock, she's actually quite grateful.

She of course feels bad for poor Pamela, who got her eyes burned out, but she's still curious. Even if it is some awful creature who did this, she needs a chance to thank them.

Finding out it's an angel is actually a pleasant surprise.

Castiel. She likes him immediately, much to Dean and Bobby's chagrin.

>

It doesn't take long for her to kill Uriel, and to distrust Anna. She kills her too, when she finds out that she was trying to off Sam. Ruby only shows up once or twice before she figures her out, and so she doesn't really come around.

It's always been known that Mary Winchester takes no shit, human or otherwise.

She sees right through Cas's 'cold soldier of heaven' act as well. She's smart enough to recognize that even though he's not human, he needs people, he needs love. Well, that, and the fact that Dean is utterly smitten. He does his best to hide it, and she does her best to let him work through it on his own, for now at least.

She does what she knows best; she makes her family a little bigger.

>

They track down Lilith on their own, all the way to Maryland.

When Ruby is there telling them to kill her, they don't. They figured out a few weeks ago, with the help of Cas and Bobby, that she is Lucifer's First, the final seal. They trick her into a demon's trap, put her in the most secure box they can find, and put her in the storage unit.

It'll have to do, for now. They vow that if they ever find a safer place, they'll move her there immediately.

>

The next night, she catches Cas preparing to leave.

"Heaven is in the middle of a civil war." He explains softly, so as not to wake anyone. "Raphael killed Michael after his plan failed, and now his followers are trying to take over. It's not pretty, and I need to go help. Raphael must be stopped, I'm the only one he might listen to."

She considers for a moment. "If you get yourself killed, then I will kill you."

He smiles at her, just barely.

She puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm serious, alright? You're family. If you need any help, you come find us."

"I will try not to be too much trouble. But thank you, so much. I will try to remember this."

The feeling sets in the moment he leaves, a sense of wrong that settles in her bones. She worries about that boy. She worries about all of her boys, and Jess, a lot.

Call it mother's instinct, or call it a premonition, but she had to suppress the urge to go out into the field and pray, the urge to bring him back.

"Where's Cas?" Asks Dean the next morning as he makes coffee.

"Left last night. Something about a civil war in heaven."

The crinkle in her son's brow lets her know he feels it too.

>

Sam and Jess get married the next month. Ellen, Ash, and Jo come up, along with Jo's girlfriend, Charlie. She's a computer genius, and apparently they met through Ash. They were perfect together, equal parts wit and hilarity. Apparently they had even hunted together.

Bobby is inexplicably happy as soon as Ellen arrives, and it puzzles her all day, until she sees them dancing together after the ceremony. She shakes her head, and smiles. It was bound to happen sometime.

Jess looks absolutely radiant, and she could swear she sees Dean shed a tear. Sam lookes happier than she's ever seen him in her life, and it's nice to finally meet Jess's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Moore.

The funniest part of the night (or so she thinks) is when Jo slings her arm around Dean's shoulders and asks him, in no uncertain terms, when he and Cas are getting hitched. The poor boy nearly chokes on his beer. She laughs so hard she has to run for the bathroom, and although it's later revealed that Sam bribed Jo, it's still one of her favorite memories.

Later, Dean asks her if she'd be shocked, if it were to happen. She laughs. "You're so obvious, the both of you. I've known since you met him, and I'll bet you he has too."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes. And I'd honestly prefer you to do it sooner rather than later, 'cause that way Bobby owes me forty bucks."

"Mom! You bet on us?!"

"Of course I did, sweetheart, that's what family's for."

It's a great night, all in all.

>

The other shoe drops, eventually.

Ellen calls them in the small hours of the morning to tell them that Cas showed up, in pieces.

She's in the car with Dean as soon as she hangs up, and they're there by sunrise.

>

When they get there, they're pissed already, and it only grows worse the more details they're given.

Cas is asleep in Ash's room, but before he conked out the managed to tell Ellen and Jo what had happened.

Raphael and his followers had turned heaven into a battlefield, and lives were being lost by the thousands every day. They had been trying to kill Cas since he arrived, and had resorted to slowly sapping his grace in an effort to slow him down. He had only managed to lose them for long enough to get to the Roadhouse before he couldn't keep going.

She vows to end this stupid fucking war. It wasn't her problem before, and she was fine with that. She was fine with letting Cas deal with it, but now it's personal. She has a stake in this, and she's going to see it through.

They get a room as close as they can, and call Sam and Jess to let them know they'll be there awhile.

>

When Cas wakes up, he's human. His grace is burned out, he tells them. It'll be fine, they say. That's all it can be, all she'll allow.

The first part of the plan works like a charm. They summon Gabriel, and though he tries to play the part of the Trickster, they know better this time. They're not joking around.

They tell him of the war, of Raphael's wrath. It saddens him to know that nothing's gotten better in the time he's been away. "Look, I'll see what I can do, but I am not making any promises, and I need a favor."

She's about to launch into a lecture when she feels a hand on her arm. "Let's hear him out, this is probably the best offer we're gonna get."

"Someone's gotta protect this prophet, Kevin Tran, while I'm off organizing peace marches. Right now he's in the desert, doing prophet stuff. I can bring him here if you guys can keep him safe."

"Alright, we'll do it." She says. Hell, what's one more person? And all they have to do is keep him safe, in a completely supernatural-proof house, populated by hunters? To her, it sounds like child's play.

He is dropped off that night. He can't be more that seventeen. They are fast friends.

>

It's like someone has flipped a switch, opened her eyes, and she watches the world change around her.

Dean grows closer to a newly human Cas. It's subtle at first, but it's there. One night, they're on the porch in the muggy summer heat, and she hears them talking. It sounds like nonsense at first– something about not stepping on a fish?– but she soon realizes that it's his story. His life story.

She falls asleep smiling.

Sam and Jess are always the happy couple, and Ellen calls her with updates on how Jo and Charlie are doing. They moved out together just recently, and have gone on a few hunts together. Bobby goes down to visit most weekends, and Ellen's determined to teach him how to cook.

One day, when Kevin and Dean are out, she teaches Cas how to bake a pie. A real one, from scratch. She watches his face light up when it comes out of the oven, just right, and she's proud.

>

Gabriel comes knocking a few weeks later with good news and bad news. The good news is that, with help, he was able to take down Raphael and his followers. The bad news is that heaven needs a new leader, and since Cas was so involved, they want him to either come lead them or find someone else to do the job.

Gabe also refuses to take the job. His part is done, he says, he's done all he can.

>

They really don't have much of a choice.

Cas leaves, in search of someone to take care of his family, what remains of it.

Dean protests heavily. "The last time you went to go help those bastards, you almost didn't make it back."

"I don't have a choice, this is my responsibility. And they didn't want me dead, Raphael did. I have to do this."

"Do you even know who you're looking for?"

"I have a few candidates. I know what I am doing, Dean."

Gabriel gives him a little of his grace back, enough to get him from place to place. Healing the entire thing is impossible. Raphael made sure of that.

>

Dean prays to him every night for a year.

>

When he comes back, heaven is peaceful again, a promising young angel named Samandriel having taken the helm with Castiel's blessing.

Dean asks him on a date, a real one, finally.

>  
Sam and Jess are expecting, and she's pretty far along. She does, however manage to find a nice dress for Charlie and Jo's wedding. It's a destination wedding, Santa Barbra to be exact, partly for the sunny weather and partly for legal reasons. They manage to coax Dean onto an airplane to make the trip out there, and she nearly bites her lip off trying to hide a grin when she sees Dean clenching Cas's hand the entire time.

The ceremony is beautiful, and it's Ellen and Bobby's proudest moment.

She can't help but remember that she knew this girl when she was seven and liked to chase her boys through the mud. Now, she's a bride, and one of the best hunters out there.

That little girl is still there, she thinks. She just changed out of her overalls and into a white dress.

>

Sam and Jess have their baby a month later, a healthy baby boy. They name him John Samuel, and name Dean as the godfather. Jess's sister Kate is the godmother, and for several days, the young parents are swamped with doting family members.

>

Dean and Cas move in together. It's a shoebox apartment, but it's right above a coffee shop and next to a bookstore and Dean can't say no to Cas after he sees how much he loves it. She has to admit, it's perfect for them. She and Sam tease them mercilessly, of course, telling them not to complain if the coffee shop patrons think the ceiling is coming down.

>

The hunting in the family is slowing down. She can't say she minds all that much, though.

>

Her 67th birthday rolls in, and everyone pulls together to celebrate. Illegal fireworks, apple pie, the whole deal. It's the best day she's had in a long time, and she is reminded again of just how lucky she is.

>

Dean finally gets down on one knee, but this time, they don't have to travel quite as far for the service. Illinois is closest, and they have the service in Chicago. Charlie hooks them up with a party barge and Kevin gets ordained as a minister, and the whole thing is a blast.

They tie tin cans to the back of the impala and send the two lovebirds away on their honeymoon. It's a scene straight out of a movie, that is to say, it's perfect.

>

Sam and Jess decide to finish school at the local college.  
Sam starts work in the DA's office, and Jess is the nurse at the local elementary school. They may not be Stanford graduates, but they've got everything they could have wanted.

>

She retires her guns to a few secure places in the house, and takes up volunteering at shelters.

Just because she's not killing monsters doesn't mean she's not helping people.

She's come to realize that saving lives doesn't have to mean putting her own in danger. She saves lives every day, by being part of them. She talks homeless kids down from panic attacks and helps disabled people find work. And at the end of the day, she feels just as useful as she did when she was hunting. The difference is that now, she doesn't have to worry about being possessed on the job.

>

Dean keeps working at Bobby's, fixing cars, doing things. He's great at his job, and it's something he wants to get up in the morning and do.

Cas goes to school at the local college and becomes an art history major. He loves the meaning behind the canvas, and he loves to learn. He figures he might teach one day, but his real dream is to get his doctorate. So she's not surprised when Dean starts a small fund with this purpose in mind.

Somewhere along the way, they acquire two twin girls, Mary and JoEllen. Their surrogate was named Missouri, and they knew she was the one as soon as they met her.

Their daughters are both full of fire, and their dads love them more than anything. So does grandma.

>

She's done well in life. She's got the biggest family in the world, and it's all she could have wanted. She started out with two boys, a '67 impala that her husband had bought on a whim, and a trace amount of hope.

And would you look at her now.


End file.
